British soldier gives new details of abuse of jailed Iraqis

Evidence: Prisoners were beaten till faces 'like haggises'

Richard Norton-Taylor and Matthew Taylor
Friday May 7, 2004
The Guardian

British military chiefs were last night confronted with further damaging allegations about the behaviour of their troops, with fresh claims of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war.
At a secret location in London last night, military police questioned a soldier, known only as "soldier C", who had come forward with the claims.

Defence sources said the soldier was a member of the Territorial Army attached to the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, the unit at the centre of investigations into allegations of torture of prisoners. The regiment, now based in Cyprus, was deployed in southern Iraq last year.

The allegations are particularly unwelcome, coming at a time when the Americans are pressing London to deploy more troops to Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence denied reports that any arrests had been made, but insisted it was taking the allegations seriously. It urged other witnesses of any mistreatment of prisoners to come forward.

Soldier C became the third to contact the Daily Mirror with allegations of abuse by British troops. He claims to have witnessed four beatings where PoWs were punched and kicked, the paper reported.

In one, a corporal allegedly placed a sandbag over a suspect's face and poked his fingers in the victim's eyes.

"I've seen the state of their faces when they took the sandbags off. Their noses were bent - they looked like haggises," Soldier C told the Mirror. He said there were three ringleaders of the violence, but that officers were to blame, as well as corporals and sergeants.

Last night the editor of the Mirror, Piers Morgan, insisted that the developments supported his decision to publish the original photographs.

He told BBC News: "He [Soldier C] believes there are already ongoing investigations into a number of people involved in this ring of 'bad apples', and that there will be automatic court martials following.

"I believe they are genuine images highlighting genuine incidents of abuse."

Since the publication of the photographs last weekend, the Mirror and its editor have come under increasing pressure from those who believe the pictures to be fake.

But last night, the unveiling of a third soldier, prepared to name those he accuses of being involved in the abuse of Iraqi PoWs, seemed to strengthen the Mirror's hand.

Although his testimony does not refer directly to the images in last week's photographs, Soldier C said he believed the pictures, which allegedly showed members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment subjecting an Iraqi prisoner to eight hours of torture and abuse, were genuine. He told the Mirror he was "aware of incidents like that".

He said there were about 100 soldiers involved in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Most of the beatings he witnessed took place during what the army calls "tactical questioning" at the Queen's Lancashire Regiment's main battle group headquarters in Basra, he added.

Mr Morgan is likely to use the new evidence to support his case when he goes before the Commons defence select committee to give evidence on the affair.